Tuesday, 27 January 2015

Our Assitive Technology team supports 15 Learning Communities of teachers in our Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) group claim project. Each one of our six itinerant teachers facilitates specific LCs where teachers are grouped according to the exceptionality of students they teach geographic location of the school.

Throughout the year there are four sessions at Terraview Learning Centre (East) and Burnhamthorpe Adult Learning Centre (West), where itinerant teachers model ways to embed and differentiate learning using the assistive technology tools and strategies found using the IWB and its peripherals.

In between the session, there is job-embedded professional learning opportunities in school. The group gets together to observe a lesson that is co-planned by a host LC member and AT itinerant teacher. Opportunities to reflect, connect and discuss the different ways to using the AT to provide "the right tool at the right time for their specific students" is explored.

Here are some photos outlining some of the aspects of in-class LC sessions held earlier this month.(Click on the image to see a larger version.)

Teachers in the HSP Pri/Junior LC prebrief the lesson to be observed at Heritage Park P.S.

(left) Host teacher Anne Marie Butters, Timberbank Public School shares how she has created digital portfolios of her HSP students' work using Promethean flipcharts. (right) Host teacher Gary Stewart, Highcastle P.S. demonstrates how he uses desktop tools to capture images from the internet.

During the observation lesson, teachers note of the routines in place for students to access and use the AT.

One of Mr Stewart's students accesses the board by using the slate to write down his idea that each graph "needs to have a title" during the Behaviour ISP LC in-class session.

(left) During Ms. Butters' lesson, a student slowly reveals parts of an image using the Magic Ink tool. (right) Mr. Stewart's students co-create an appropriate, detailed line graph together using Dual user feature. One student is making a voice note using the sound recorder. The other is plotting data.

Tool choice and the design of the lesson is made according to the specific needs of the students in the class.

(left) Host teacher Ms. Peterkin at Heritage Park P.S., shares the different ways students will show their learning. A few of her students work on the IWB, others using pencil and paper. (see below) (right) A finishes line graph by Mr. Stewart's students. One student typed his inference while the other used the sound recorder to verbally record his observation of the graph.

(left) A student uses digital manipulatives to graph her data. (right) A student uses the grid organizer, printed from the flipchart, to graph his data on paper.

Behaviour ISP in-class LC group after the lessonat Highcastle P.S.

Following the descriptive writing lesson at Timberbank P.S.,the group debrief ways students responded to the embedded AT.

This week our third set of Learning Community sessions have started. One of the goals of these sessions is to engage our learners using images and multimedia by using the document camera with the IWB. Stay tuned for blog entries sharing other in-class lessons and activities in our TDSB special education LC teacher classrooms!